Q&A: Brian Maienschein, candidate for State Assembly District 77

California Assemblyman Brian Maienschein is running for re-election.
California Assemblyman Brian Maienschein is running for re-election.
(Howard Lipin/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
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The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board interviewed the two candidates in the State Assembly District 77 race ahead of the March 3, 2020, primary election in which the top two vote-getters will advance to a runoff election in November. Below is the transcript of our Dec. 3, 2019, interview with Democratic Assemblyman Brian Maienschein, who is running for re-election to represent a district that includes Carmel Valley, Clairemont, Kearny Mesa, Mira Mesa, Rancho Bernardo, Rancho Penasquitos, Scripps Ranch and Poway. His opponent is Republican June Cutter. This interview was transcribed using the digital transcription service Temi and checked for accuracy by a staffer. To call any errors to our attention or to ask any questions about our interviews, please email matthew.hall@sduniontribune.com with the subject line “election interviews.”

Union-Tribune: Why give it another term? What do you want to accomplish?

Maienschein: I still think there’s a lot of issues in my district and in the city and the state. I’ve been a leader on homelessness and mental health. I’m going to continue my work there and accomplish more.

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Q: There’s different ways to change parties. Phil Gramm told the voters he was changing parties and then said, judge me. And then there’s the way you did it, which the Republican Club of Rancho Bernardo, the women, will never forgive you for, for essentially having this, apparently, deal in place while you’re running as a Republican, to change. So can you talk about, uh, how that worked out? Was it all prearranged? Do you have any regrets?

A: That’s a lot there. I don’t even know what you’re referring to about prearranged. There was nothing prearranged.

Meet the other candidate in this race below:

June Cutter, Republican candidate for State Assembly District 77, met with the San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board ahead of the 2020 primary election.

Feb. 4, 2020

Q: It’s been suggested that the Democrats went very easy on you because they saw it coming.

A: I can’t tell you that. Again, you know, the flip side of it is, they spent some money on my opponent last time. I am pleased and proud that no Democrat in the State Assembly or in the state Senate endorsed against me, particularly the San Diego delegation. I think it’s because they saw I was a good person doing good work and representing my district well, and I’m proud of that.

Q: The president played a big part of that decision, I take it, as you’ve said.

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A: Yeah.

Q: Have you experienced any blowback from people as you’re knocking on doors and going around?

A: You know, I was somebody who is, I think, seen as a moderate, as somebody who came out of my community and I’m well known for two terms on the [San Diego] City Council where I did, you know, a lot of rebuilding after two fires. So I don’t think I was seen as somebody that was an ideologue one way or the other anyway. And so it really wasn’t a big leap. If you looked at where my votes were, and as one example, I was the only pro-choice member of the Republican caucus. I’m the only one who got an A from Equality California. So I really wasn’t matching up with the Republicans. I was matching up with the Democrats. So I haven’t experienced any sort of, you know, “Why are you not happy with Donald Trump?” I think that’s somewhat self-explanatory. And I think I did set out my reasons when I switched, um, pretty concisely and clearly.

Q: At the time, I think I read a story that said only a handful of people had asked for their donations back. How many ended up doing that?

A: I think it was five.

Q: So that number is consistent, that number didn’t grow.

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A: No, no.

Q: And what do you attribute that to?

“I wasn’t seen as somebody who was just a partisan. I was seeing that people who contributed to me saw me as somebody who was doing a good, effective job representing them regardless of political party.”

— Brian Maienschein

A: To go back to both the earlier questions is that there really wasn’t ... I wasn’t seen as an ideologue. I wasn’t seen as somebody who was just a partisan, I was seeing that people who contributed to me saw me as somebody who was doing a good, effective job representing them regardless of political party. So the party switch didn’t result in any sort of change really on a fundraising front or on other fronts either.

Q: How about the timing, coming so soon after an election? How long was it in the back of your mind that maybe this is something I would do? Was it there before?

A: It had been mentioned to me a lot and it was something that was in the back of my mind. You know, I was obviously very disenchanted with the tone and tenor from the federal administration. We had had a number of votes in the Assembly on sort of confronting, if you will, the federal administration, and I had always sided against the president. And so it was something that had been, I think I had been thinking about ... I don’t know, when you make a big decision or when you do that, I don’t know that there’s ever an exact moment that is sort of perfect, you know, to, I don’t know when that moment would be. It became something that I couldn’t feel comfortable with any longer, and so that’s when I announced it

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Q: A staple of California Republican politics forever and ever has been the malign influence of unions in Sacramento, and you were part of Republicans who offered this critique and worried about pensions and worried about affordable benefits and things like that. And now you’re part of a party where the basically the backbone of the party is organized labor. Have you rethought what you think about organized labor or do you still have grave worries about its power?

A: I’ve been somebody who has always had a good relationship with organized labor even when I was on the city council.

Q: But didn’t you support the pension reform matter?

A: I was frequently supported by organized labor. But to respond to your question, yes. I think that’s something that needs to continue to be, um, part of the discussion. Pensions have to be sustainable. They have to be there for people when they retire. So, yes, I think that’s something that I don’t think those are in conflict. I think they’re part and parcel of the same thing.

Q: What do you think about the courts scuttling Prop B?

A: Yeah, I mean I think there was a lot of people that predicted that that was going to happen and I don’t think it was probably from a legal standpoint was necessarily a huge surprise.

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Q: Do you think there should be “Son of Prop B” rising from the ashes here?

A: You know, that I don’t know even what that would look like, you know, what the appetite is for that. We’re going to have a new mayor in the city shortly. Whoever that is, is going to want to do on that front, I couldn’t say. I think it’s unlikely that something would make it, you know, from start finish on that.

Q: Are you supporting one of the candidates for San Diego mayor?

A: Yeah, Todd Gloria.

Q: Have some of your positions changed? I remember when you ran in 2018 you were opposed to rent control. Are you still opposed to rent control?

A: Yeah.

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Q: Split roll, you opposed it. Are you still opposed?

A: Correct.

Q: Okay. Also that year you raised concerns about public safety reforms and the early release of prisoners. Now two years in, to some of these, Props 47, 57, have you given more thought to that? What needs to change in terms of early release of prisoners?

A: Yeah. I mean ... I think it’s an important issue because I think if you look at some of the early release it hasn’t worked maybe as intended. Having said that, the voters voted for it, you know, and that’s what they wanted to see. And so I think the results are going to have to be looked at as to what can be fine tuned on that. Are there certain prisoners who have committed certain crimes that are less likely to rehabilitate themselves? I think we will have the data to do that. And then whether it’s going to be legislative fix or whether it’s going to be fixed by the voters, I don’t know. But at the end of the day, those were propositions that the voters decided on.

Q: I’m curious about your split roll decision. Is it a camel’s nose under the tent type of thing, is that basically what your concern is?

A: Maybe. I guess that’s part of it. I just don’t know that it’s tied to something that, um, necessarily moves the ball forward for California. So maybe a little bit of both.

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Q: There’s also talk of the California School Board Association also introducing its own PACs to raise $11 billion. And this is essentially, these things are all about pensions, and so do we even have a proper frame of debate in Sacramento when we’re proposing tax hikes at a time when the state’s running huge surpluses because there’s those pension liabilities out there?

A: Yeah. I mean, I haven’t been supportive of tax hikes, particularly while there’s a surplus. So, you know, I think that is that always going to be a part of the discussion in California? Probably. Um, but I think when you’ve got a surplus the size that California has, I think there’s ways to address some of the issues without having knee-jerk tax-increase discussion.

Q: Another question here on your party switch. I want to ask you about Tony Krvaric, who called you, “absolutely the worst kind of politician” and said you switched for “self preservation and political games.” How do you respond to that?

A: Well, it’s Tony Krvaric. I mean it’s the chairman of the Republican Party. I think he’s somebody who should probably take a hard look at the party. Um, look at the direction it’s going. Look at what’s happening in California, not one Republican has been elected to statewide office since 2006. The last [U.S.] Senate election didn’t have a Republican in it. Um, and the party yet continues to take positions that are way out of the mainstream for California. So I think Tony is, you know, you sort of have to take anything he says with a grain of salt. Republicans weren’t ... Um, so he’s, you know, it’s sort of feigned outrage. If he was worried about it, he would have done something in the past, he’s trying to, in his mind, that makes him save face but I see him for what he is.

Q: About party switching and the GOP, since you’ve switched, [San Diego City Councilman] Mark Kersey and [San Diego County District Attorney] Summer Stephan, for different reasons, have left the GOP.

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A: Right.

Q: Um, do you see more people switching?

A: I do.

Q: And can you give us some names? [Laughter]

A: Well, here’s what I would say on that is I think it’s what’s more significant is not necessarily elected officials doing it. You know, was it, you know, a big deal? Probably. It’s getting to be less a little bit and then Mark Kersey that makes it, okay, it’s a little bit less, Summer Stephan, a little bit less. As we get to name four or five or six, which are probably coming, um, it’ll be less and less of a big deal, right? But what I think is a big deal is the decline in voter registration of Republicans, of regular people, and that’s a party that’s getting 11% of new voters registering. I don’t know what the figure is, something like that. If nine out of 10 people are rejecting what you stand for, that should send a message. Instead, the Tony Krvarics of the world want to double down and triple down on the same, you know, message and I don’t think people are responding to that.

Q: But the decline to states are also rising pretty pretty quickly?

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A: They are.

Q: Is that a message to both parties that absolute positions are not what they’re ...?

A: I think there’s some truth to that. Yeah. I mean I think there’s a lot of people who are disenfranchised with what they see, particularly coming out of Washington. It’s just people arguing with each other and not being about solving problems and being ... more rational. And again, to the earlier point, you know, when you talk about partisanship, I think I was always somebody who’s seen this as being reasonable, rational and trying to solve problems. Um, whether it was the MCO issue at the state. Uh, I just got money for Rady Children’s Hospital, for genome sequencing, for Medi-Cal patients. Be a huge, um, you’ll appreciate this, will save huge amounts of money and it’ll treat a whole lot of kids in the state with rare diseases. All those things are about problem solving. They’re not about partisanship. So yeah, I do think there’s some of that. But what I would say on that more specifically, however it is, Democrats are still doing well. Even though there is an increase in the decline to states, it’s the Republicans that are doing very poorly.

Q: But Democrats you can say are doing well in terms of dominating the state, but are they doing well in addressing the state’s problem? Education reform. California has nothing compared to other large states. And on a variety of fronts. California, on housing, California is getting nothing done. When are we going to see a reform party show up within the Democratic ranks?

A: I don’t know. I couldn’t answer that. I don’t know. I don’t know when that will come. Um, I think California has done well in a lot of areas. I think there’s areas where the state of California hasn’t. Um, but what I would say is I think the voters of the state of California, that people in the state of California feel more comfortable with the Democrats being, uh, more likely to solve those problems than the Republicans.

Q: In January 2017, the legislative analyst Mac Taylor put out a report that said California will never solve its housing crisis until it gets enough politicians to convince the public that there is a real problem, that the NIMBYs should lose their power. And since then we’ve seen Sen. [Scott] Wiener but we haven’t seen a whole lot of other Democrats getting on board for trying to fight for a whole new way of thinking, including Gavin Newsom. It’s a pretty profound area where the cost of housing is why we have the highest poverty rate. What would you do? Did you support Wiener’s bill?

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Construction continues on townhomes.
(K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune)

A: It’s assuming that Gavin Newsom or the politicians have even the ability to influence the public to change positions. What happens is actually the public comes to that opinion or conclusion and then the legislators will reflect that. I think there is a growing understanding that California has a housing supply issue. I do think people are understanding now. It’s complicated, right? Because what has to go into building new housing production is it’s not just a wave of let’s change one law or one issue or one Senate bill or one Assembly bill. It’s a lot. It’s a lot that’s going to have to go into that. But we’re having housing discussions for the first time that I remember, um, in my lifetime, in anyone’s lifetime here, where we’re actually talking about it from a serious front. Newsom has said he’s committed to a huge increase in housing. So he’s only been in office one year. Will he end up acting on that? You know, we’ll see. But I think the fact that he’s talking about it is significant, and is committed to it, is significant.

Q: But the response of California Democrats, uh, by and large, especially Toni Atkins, is the idea that you can build enough quote unquote affordable housing to solve the problem. And yet they’re like lotteries. A tiny handful of families win them. So you’re now a part of a party that is committing to a policy that has failed and wants to supersize it in addressing the problem, all these different things that are on there, calling for billions of dollars in new spending for quote unquote affordable housing, which costs over $400,000, so it just feels to me like there’s a wide open avenue for someone to say to the Democrats, “Hey, why don’t we start trying new approaches?” And yet we hear very little of that outside of people like Scott Wiener. Did you take a stand on Senate bill 50?

A: It never got in a completed form to the assembly.

Q: The concept?

A: The concept? Well, what do you... I don’t know what, I guess, the concept is.

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Q: The concept of Senate Bill 50 was to make it much easier to build four and five story condo type apartments in areas that had access to transit or were job centers.

A: And this is why I think having it in a final form matters because again, with all due respect, I guess that’s how you would characterize it. That’s not necessarily how everybody would characterize it. What I think is significant coming out of there is I would just... I am supportive of increased housing supply. I do not support eliminating any local, or any and all local input on that.

Q: The Newsom administration got a bill passed that authorizes cities to be fined if they don’t meet their requirements. And it’s already taken preliminary steps towards it with Encinitas and Huntington Beach and other [cities.] So in theory at least the state can force local governments to do things. Was that law a mistake to allow this to give the state more of a stick to use to solve these problems?

A: Well, I think the state has the ability, particularly where the state is providing funding, to have certain obligations met. And for those jurisdictions who don’t meet those requirements or obligations, I don’t think they’re entitled to state money.

Q: The flip side of housing obviously is homelessness.

A: Yep.

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Q: Something you obviously know a lot about. Um, why does the problem keep getting worse? What can the state do about it?

A: Well, I think it gets worse because it’s incredibly complicated. Because I think it’s difficult for somebody to come in and solve something where it’s a housing issue, it’s a mental health issue, it’s a substance abuse issue, a domestic violence issue. You look at all the different areas that affect homelessness and it makes it complicated for government or for anybody else to solve it.

Q: But there are some solutions. It seems like in San Diego, at least outside San Diego, [Mayor] Kevin Faulconer is getting some praise for some of the steps that he has taken.

A: Well, Project 25 is great, right?

Q: That’s a lot of people who are getting some help. I mean why... What is the answer? It can’t be as simple as saying it’s complicated or we can’t solve this problem. First off, we’ve been going to end homelessness for years.

A: Well, right. And I don’t know why anyone would say that. But look at Project 25. I mean, look what I did when I was working on this. It was hugely successful. Hugely successful. Housed the most difficult, the most longterm chronically homeless, 38 of them, saved a whole lot of money, by the way, $5 to $7 million in its first year. Won an award from the San Diego County Taxpayers association for what I did, creating Project 25. Hugely successful.

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Q: Does it scale?

A: Yeah. I think because you need somebody in each county jurisdiction who’s willing to just ride herd, to focus on it, and get it done. But the way I was able to get it done was we got them mental health treatment, got them substance abuse treatment and we got them in housing and it worked. Thirty-eight. The most expensive, the most difficult, most longterm.... One of the gentlemen had been homeless since the Vietnam War. He’s in housing now.

Q: Have you checked back with those 38?

A: Yeah, I mean there’s still, you know, there’s obviously privacy issues and all that, so not all 38 of course. And I didn’t have a relationship with all 38 of them anyway, but a few of them, yes. And they’re still in housing and they’re doing great and they were the toughest. That was the other thing, too. They weren’t cherry picked from, you know, a waiter or waitress who, you know, kind of lost their job with an economic downturn. These are people, you know... Somebody who’s been homeless since the Vietnam War is somebody who’s probably got a lot of corresponding issues.

Q: You mentioned ... various drug abuse, mental health treatments, uh, where are you on the debate about housing first? Are are you going to throw that out the window?

“Allowing local government to partner with somebody would go a long way towards solving [homelessness].”

— Brian Maienschein

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A: Well, no, let me add one thing to that, is I think that there needs to be public-private partnerships with counties or cities, so local governments, and then some homeless provider within that county. So for example, it could be, in San Diego, let’s take for example, it could be a Father Joe’s, right? And the county.... One of the bills that I did would allow there to be the creation of JPAs specifically on the issue of homelessness to allow for the first time ever to allow nonprofits to work with local governments. So for example, with Project 25, United Way stepped up, they did provide $500,000 excuse me, a million and a half dollars for case managers, and empowering somebody to step up. And, and when you talk about, I’m still thinking about your scale question, when you talk about scaling it, it’s something that’s going to be different in Bakersfield, right, than San Diego, just by definition. There may or may not be, let’s say, a Father Joe in Bakersfield. There may be a United way or maybe whoever, whoever it is. Allowing local government to partner with somebody would go a long way towards solving this, so if somebody wanted to step up and do something on it, empowering them to have the JPA and letting them action make binding quasi-governmental decisions would be, really, I think important and would allow something like Project 25 either to scale up in a place like San Diego because again, if you look at it, you know... I called it Project 25 just because I thought we would get 25 people, we ended up getting 38. But the next 38 by definition will be easier and less costly, probably have less mental illness, probably have less.... The next 38 after that are now easier. If you look at it, and I tend to look at it what I think is the easiest way to look at it is if you look at homelessness as a continuum. If you look at somebody here as the example I gave earlier, somebody who’s been homeless since the Vietnam War, has PTSD, probably has a drug and alcohol issue. And then down to somebody here who is couchsurfing, you know, three nights a week kind of balances with the national order, the economy, goes up down. These people, with a smaller amount of money, these people are much easier to deal with. They may just need some job retraining, maybe they just need a little bit of, you know, a hotel voucher for one night or one or two nights a month. These people are cost effective and much, much easier to deal with. So with a smaller amount of money you can get with a lot more, but you have to get, you have to kind of get there, if you get to them. And so I think what we showed, and we did have, I even had the business school at Point Loma Nazarene... You know, I had them keep the data. So it was sort of, it was unimpeachable, they looked at the data and what it is and when you show, look, this is what we’re able to do with this 38, that proves that the next 38 are going to be simpler.

Q: Where are you on conservatorship as a concept? Do you think that should be done up and down the state?

Q: You voted for it, right?

A: I do think that it’s inhumane to let somebody who has serious mental illness just stay on the street. I think there’s a way to have conservatorships that are done in a humane way that get that person in and get them treatment.

Q: Are you surprised at how quickly the conversation has shifted to that? It’s a difficult concept to grasp. Some people look at it as a civil rights issue.

A: Yeah. And that is, um, the challenge, to your earlier question on homelessness, is that conservatorship is complicated. It’s complicated for people to understand even what it is. Right? It’s sort of a legal, you know... It’s in the weeds even for lawyers for the most part. And yeah, there are people who genuinely come from a good place, who feel like it’s a rights issue. What I would say to that though is, is a person who’s severely mentally ill is not having their rights, um, really respected by just being out on the streets permanently. I think it’s more humane and better for them to have, and by the way, it’s done through a court anyway, so there is a referee there that we all collectively as a society recognize, able to make sure that person’s rights are protected but still get that person help.

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Q: in January, Gov. Newsom appointed Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas to his task force on homelessness. In September, Mark Ridley-Thomas broke with the Democrats and the county board and voted to have the county appeal to the Supreme Court, joined the appeal of the court ruling that says you can’t lock up people just for being homeless. And the word on the streets was that his constituents were fed up with the issue. Are we at risk of compassion fatigue?

A: I don’t know if I would say compassion fatigue. I would say people want to see a complicated problem solved. Uh, and I think people want to pitch in to do it. I just think it’s a tough issue that a lot of people don’t know how to deal with, and you have to have sticking power and staying power to do it. It’s one thing to have someone say we’re going to end homelessness in, you know, five years or 10 years or whatever. I think that’s a disservice because I think that’s very unlikely. I think what you have to say is what can we do to take some steps that make homelessness less likely, start taking whatever your population is in a city or a county and start to whittle it down.

Q: It’s even grimmer than we think. We’ve always looked to Utah as a state that has done so much for homelessness, and there is now a new state report out that says the metrics were all wrong, that in fact Utah did not do better. So we have no models to look to anymore.

A: Project 25.

Q: Okay.

A: Project 25.

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Q: Okay, and I know that, and I know the stat that 1% of the homeless eat up 30% of the costs or whatever. So yeah. I’ve written editorials supporting that. Not yours specifically. The generic concept.

A: If so, I want you to send me... I would love to see that. Yeah, because I do think that that’s a huge win. I mean that’s something you can show. When I would talk about it, when I would go... Because I’ll tell you, when I was working on it, that was a time when we couldn’t get people interested in homelessness. I would go to every Rotary, I would go to all these places trying to talk to people. They would be like, yeah, it’s sad and then they would just move on. They thought it was sad and if you ask somebody, yeah, you know, they didn’t want people to be homeless, they didn’t really... It’s starting to rise as an issue. Again, back to what we’re saying earlier, to sit and say, Oh a politician should do this or that. The people see this, the people see this, and it’s going to ultimately be people that resolve this problem. And if you look at what I’m able to walk into a room and talk about that we solved here, it’s significant because no matter where you are on the political spectrum, if you look at it as an issue of humanity to people who are seriously mentally ill and, you know, struggling with these concepts of conservatorship, you look at again. Or if you look at it from just a taxpayer standpoint, just a money issue, it’s a win either way. And I’d love to see that replicated throughout the state, and I believe it can be and that is what I’m passionate about. And you ask why I want to keep running, that’s why. I think we haven’t had enough of a focus, not just on homelessness, but homelessness as a mental health issue because that’s why it’s so hard to get some of these people off the streets because... Let me give you another example. I took my daughters when they were very young, and I took them out. We got socks and they were very, very little and I was struggling a little bit with I’m going to have them go with me to hand out socks. We did it like 5 in the morning and nobody around and I was like, should I do this or not? They were seven and five or eight and six. And I told them, the way I explained it to them was, you know, just like you sometimes get injuries to your elbow and knees when you fall. They, some of these people have injuries in their head and if they, for example, if you thought it was raining inside right now, you would put up an umbrella even though someone would look at you as that’s not a rational decision, right? So for people who are on the streets, they’re not making decisions like the average citizen would make. They think that they really are hearing voices in their head or they really are having PTSD issues. So getting housing for them or doing things for them is infinitely more complicated because they think they’re behaving rationally. They think, Oh, I want to stay out on the streets. When realistically, I think you’d be hard pressed to say somebody would choose to be on the street 365 days a year, sleeping in the rain, being cold, not having food, possibly being the victim of a crime versus sleeping in a house. It’s not really a rational decision. So it’s a mental health, particularly when it’s a chronic homeless position, it’s a mental health issue. And I’ve done a lot on that too.... We have counties in the state of California that don’t have any psychiatrists. So getting loans written down for people who agree to go work for a county facility in counties that don’t have mental health training. I’ve done a lot on postpartum depression. Um, I’ve done, uh, allowing ER docs and G.P.s to get their continuing education credits in mental health because they oftentimes, G.P.s., right? They got educated doing what they thought they would be doing and now some of them are ground zero for a mental health crisis. So letting them get more training in that area will help.

Five cannabis plants grow in the backyard of a Southern California resident.
(Matt Masin/The Orange County Register via AP)

Q: Prop 64 passed easily in San Diego County and statewide. But since then there’ve been big issues. So I’d like to just go through a few and see what you think. Do you think that local governments should be compelled to allow marijuana deliveries even though Prop 64 was predicated on the idea that local governments would get to control whether or not marijuana was distributed?

A: Uh, I don’t, I don’t even understand that. Compel... What is it?

Q: The law said, uh, local control. Local governments will decide whether or not marijuana, cannabis is legally sold. However, the rules as implemented under [Gov.] Jerry Brown say that no, local governments can’t control deliveries. So in the 80% of California, local governments where they have refused to legalize cannabis sales, there’s still cannabis sales. Just the difference is it’s a delivery. So it’s a question that gets to, are we still crafting screwed up initiatives? Also questions of local control but also questions of bait and switch. Do you think that local governments should be allowed to ban cannabis, period, in their jurisdictions?

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A: You know, I guess this is probably, I’m a little bit out on a limb because I’m not as familiar maybe....

Q: Well Phil Ting introduced a bill towards that end.

A: To do what?

Q: To tell local governments you have to accept it.

A: But that’s a statewide proposition, so I don’t even know...

Q: There’s arguments over what it means but there’s a lawsuit pending in which four or five different cites are made of local control, local control, local control in the text of it, without the context of saying, except for deliveries.

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A: I just... I don’t know enough about that.

Q: Okay. What do you feel about Phil Ting’s idea to force local governments to allow marijuana if the public has voted on it?

A: Unless that’s what the state proposition that passed said, I wouldn’t be in favor of forcing local.

Q: What do you think of the Prop 64 rollout? The implementation of recreational ...

A: Yeah, I mean that’s the difficulties of something like that being done by initiative is I think now there’s all of these questions that the initiative didn’t... And again, I would go as far as to say a lot of it’s well-meaning, well-intentioned. Cities don’t know what to do about it. You have issues even of where can they bank? So it’s, yeah, I mean it’s probably going to be litigated in the courts for a while, and there may have to be some... You know, there is legislation that’s going, that’s trying to interpret that probably, you know, kind of what you’re saying is how should localities interpret this. On banking, I know we’ve done a lot on banking to try to figure that out when it’s still illegal at the federal level.

Q: Should there be a state public bank that would help with that issue?

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A: Maybe. I don’t know how that’s going to end up, but I think kind of what you’re asking is, was it crafted well enough to respond to all of these questions? No.

Q: Did you support it? I don’t recall your position on it.

A: No I believe I didn’t.

Q: Didn’t take a position or didn’t support it?

A: I don’t think I took a position on it.

Q: Who’s your preferred governor? Brown or Newsom? Or Pete or Gray or Arnold?

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A: Uh, Abraham Lincoln.

Q: He was never governor.

Q: When you shifted, you said that you did so part of it because your positions on issues such as gun control, immigration, abortion and LGBTQ rights had shifted. How has your position on gun legislation changed?

A: I think some of those were core positions that I had always had even frankly back to my city council days. But yeah, I think, that was an area where I just see it as a growing problem. And while some of these obviously aren’t, you know, magic solutions, I think they’re again, steps towards providing some level of safety and protection for people.

Q: Rather than getting into the federal issue, what can the state, what can you, do to address it?

A: We’ve done a lot. I mean the state of California’s probably got more...I think California has done well in this area. But again, I mean you look at what causes it, that’s one part of it, no question. And a big part of it and a significant part of it. But there’s again, there’s other issues too there, whether it’s mental health or other issues as well.

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Q: Let me ask you about wildfires. As you alluded earlier, you have deep experience with the issue as a council member. Um, has the state done enough to protect against wildfires and specifically, um, what do you think should happen with PG&E.

A: Well, so I didn’t support what I consider a bail out of PG&E during our last legislative session. I think I was one of the few that didn’t support that. For that reason. I just thought it was bail out of PG&E. I think PG&E hasn’t taken responsibility, hasn’t taken the safety precautions that they should. And you know, there’s a lot of things that you can do on wires in the back country, and cable in the back country, wire in the back country, all of that that PG&E repeatedly neglected to do with warnings that that was going to happen. I think there’s been a lot of changes really since 2003 and 2007, you know, even down to coordinating, um, what sort of air support we have. You know, there was an issue, and I’ll just use this as kind of an example, but I think it’s been indicative of other things. You know, that there was military aircraft on the ground in 2003 that wasn’t allowed to go up, and you know, that’s wrong. And so that changed. Now there’s coordination and military helicopters, military aircraft can go out. That coordination happens. So I think 2003 people were, you know, people all up and down the state were unprepared for what major wildfire can do. And if you look at what’s changed since then, I think there have been significant changes. Not enough. And not particularly in Northern California where there’s PG&E... Just decimated Paradise and all these just are sort of wiped off the map. And I think PG&E bears the brunt of that for not doing things they should have done years and years ago.

Q: But the state’s also fairly questioned. We had a story over the summer that says Cal Fire doesn’t fine people who don’t have defensible space. They get warnings. In Los Angeles County, when they shifted from warnings to fines, they saw compliance go up to over 80% so the idea that... I hate PG&E as much as the next Californian, but I think Cal Fire also holds some blame too. If we have all this talk about defensible space and you’re letting people off with warnings. So I’m always surprised that people defend what the legislature’s done on this because there are other states where they’ve used model bills to try to force clearing, especially in Western states. So, I don’t know, it seems to me it’s not just PG&E. Any reaction to the legislature’s fire safety history?

A: Have they made steps since 2003 and 2007 that have been significant? Absolutely. Absolutely. A lot. A lot happened after that, um, at the state level. Could more be done? Yeah. Should that be something that’s explored? Yeah, it should be. But I think, you know, you couldn’t remotely compare the two. I mean, PG&E is a provider that clearly had the funding to make some... and just repeatedly time and time and time again, neglected it. And they shouldn’t be bailed out by taxpayers because of it.

Q: The president has raised the issue of how California just isn’t taking care of its forests when, of course, most of those forests are actually on federal land.

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A: Correct.

Q: So is there something the state can do on federal lands at all?

A: My understanding is no, is that the state can’t take any action on federal lands. Well I think that’s actually just, I think from a legal standpoint, I just don’t think the state is allowed to do anything on federal lands, but I do think that’s a good example of, you know, if he thinks something’s wrong with these lands, these forests, and he’s the president....

Q: Well, the counter counter argument is that these are national forests. There’s not homes to subdivision.

A: Right, there’s no homes... Yeah, for sure. And again, so moving back for a second, we live in California. We have these huge national forests. It’s what makes California great. We have canyons. we have a dry environment. Wildfires are going to be an issue here in California in a way they’re not going to be in Minnesota or some other states, so I do think having a federal government that was interested in having a policy that would address these issues and take that into account... If that’s true, and I don’t know, because I don’t have a district that has a national forest, you know, I don’t have this huge... For the most part, these are sort of Northern California issues, and I don’t have a forestry background. I couldn’t sit here and tell you, really one way or the other whether that’s true. But what I would say is there’s a whole lot of people at the federal level who would understand this policy and who should be developing policy that puts fire risk at the forefront.

Q: Where are people in your district telling you are the biggest priorities?

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A: You know, it’s a mix. You know, education is always an issue. Cost of living is an issue. Homelessness has grown as an issue, and I think it’s just sort of standard, you know, meat and potatoes issues.

A child stands at the entrance to the women's section of the city-sanctioned homeless camp.
(K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune)

Q: On education, [Assemblywoman] Shirley Weber says that the LCFF [Local Control Funding Formula for schools] is going to be in her sights this coming year.

A: I think that’s going to be a big discussion this upcoming year as to what happens there?

Q: What should happen with school funding?

A: I don’t know. I mean, I think what’s good about it is there’s kind of this groundswell of movement there to discuss some things maybe for the first time in a long time. And, you know, I think Shirley Weber is a good one to lead that discussion. Um, I have a lot of respect for her. And so, you know, like anyone else, I’m going to sit in and hear what everyone has to say and we’ll make a decision.

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Q: But last spring she couldn’t even get a hearing on a bill. The guy wouldn’t even schedule a hearing. The guy from Long Beach. And afterwards I talked to [Assembly Speaker Anthony] Rendon’s aide and Rrendon’s aide says, “Well, we’re just devolving power down to the committee level.” So this gets back to my question about, you know, Democrats and teachers unions, and you say you’ve been elected with union support, but teachers unions in California are not a force for good, in my opinion. Do you have a different view of teachers unions and how they wield their power?

A: Well, I think, when you say a force for good... I mean, “They’re not a force for good?” I think that’s a pretty strong statement.

Q: Well, for the 6 million kids in California, K through 12, I don’t think they’re a force for good.

A: Okay. Well you’re entitled to your opinion. I mean...

Q: Well, but this gets to the whole...

A: But our discussion in California is going to be... I think in a way you’re sort of chasing at windmills to sit and say let’s just, what I hear you saying and maybe I’m wrong, is sort of let’s just eliminate the teachers union.

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Q: No, no, no, just reduce their power. I’m just saying...

A: I mean let’s, you know, if you want to be realistic about solving problems, I think you have to be realistic about what the situation actually that actually exists in California. You know harking back to a day that left California in 1980 or 1970 is to me not productive. Let me give you another example. I was one of the people tasked on the issue, and I don’t know if you guys are familiar with it or not, with the MCO tax issue. Are you familiar with that? With Medi-Cal?

Q: No.

A: Okay. So this was, and this is kind of interesting because this may have been the most important issue we’ve worked on the last few years. The federal government came to California and said, California is now no longer in compliance with the ACA [Affordable Care Act] and if you don’t get into compliance with the ACA, you’re risking $1.3 billion that we give you from that account and essentially how they do it, just to make an extremely complicated issue as succinct as possible is California has what’s called an MCO tax. It’s a tax on health plans. It’s something that has been universally accepted. So the issues on that have been worked through, but now it was no longer in compliance so now what there needed to be is it needed to instituted in a way that got compliance with the federal administration. Otherwise our Medi-Cal essentially effectively would end in California. Without that $1.3 billion from the federal government, California can’t fund Medi-Cal obviously. So instead of just digging in your heels and saying, this is attacks, this is, let’s eliminate this. We would have eliminated Medi-Cal in California. And at the end of the day, and this was when I was Republican, I was able to get, I believe 14 Republicans to vote for it because I did get to work and I was reasonable and responsible and I didn’t just say, let’s pretend this problem doesn’t exist. We need Medi-Cal funding from the federal government. We have to have it. And to just sit and dig in and say, I want to be a partisan Republican and not be a part of solutions, which is all Republicans.... You know, just from a numbers standpoint, it’s the reality of California. It’s where Republicans are in terms of numbers. There’s 19 right now in the Assembly. Against 61.

Q: Were you comfortable doing that with the budget trailer bill?

A: And we ended up actually with a net tax cut of $100 million, a $100 million dollar tax cut by doing that. So we actually saved Medi-Cal and provided a tax cut, which I would think, right, you would applaud. So, and the sad thing there was that was actually an instance of kind of government coming together in a reasonable rational way to solve a problem and it got in in today’s sort of atmosphere, it got zero sort of coverage of this is something good that actually happens. Save Medi-Cal, big deal, when half your kids in state are on Medi-Cal, it was a pretty big deal and yet it’s not seen as you know, newsworthy because you have people on either side of the partisan divide tweeting and engaging in behavior that I think the average person in San Diego probably finds not being reasonable to their lives.

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Q: Well, it also was the last week of the legislative session in 2018, and you were competing with a lot of other things for attention.

A: Oh true. I know it’s not... I don’t even really... I’m not trying to criticize you. I’m not criticizing you guys for doing that, but I guess what I’m saying is it’s, it’s an example of people being reasonable and not being partisan and solving something. To your issue, 19, you know, the people in the Republican party who continue to want to just dig in their heels and not be a part of solutions. If there’s 19 of them, they’re not getting bills passed. They’re not a part of, you know, I got to... To talk about the genome, if you guys want to talk about the genome, I was able to get $5 million for genome sequencing here in California. Well if you’re behaving in a way that shows you don’t want to come to the table and negotiate and provide solutions, you’re never going to do anything.

Q: But we started this talking about Shirley Weber, and that’s why I brought up the union thing because Shirley Weber has so little power relative to the teachers union, she can’t even get a hearing for a bill on teacher reform,

A: What I would say is she’s going to get that hearing this year if I had to guess. So I think she is going to get that hearing. What happened between her and the chair of that committee? I don’t know. I’m not on that committee, so I’ll accept your characterization of it but I don’t know because I don’t sit on that committee. But what I would say is I strongly believe Shirley Weber will have plenty of committee hearings on this this year because I think the legislature is committed to doing something on this.

Q: What do you think that something is?

A: I don’t know. I don’t know, I mean again, I don’t want to sit here and predict. I think there’s a lot that this has to go through. It’s complicated. There are political issues. I agree. But there’s substantive issues too as to what this looks like. She’s given herself, as she should, some flexibility as to what she wants to see accomplished. But I think where she’s headed is something where a lot of people are interested in.

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Q: With another term, what do you want to come back to your constituents and say you did? Like you have the meat and potatoes issues mostly, but what do you want to actually do?

“I’ve been able to get a lot of bills passed, I think, because I’m seen as somebody up there who’s trying to solve problems.”

— Brian Maienschein

A: I want to continue my work on homelessness. I continue my work on mental health, uh, and just represent my community, I think, in a way that they can be comfortable with, in a way that they can see somebody who’s up there trying to solve problems and being responsive. We’re known for great constituent service. We always have done that. Um, so to continue doing the things that I’ve been doing during my career. You know, I’ve been able to get a lot of bills passed, I think, because I’m seen as somebody up there who’s trying to solve problems. I think it is noteworthy, the support that I’ve gotten from my colleagues up there, even when I was a Republican. And I think it’s because I’m taken seriously there as somebody who gets things done, is prepared, is representing my district as it should be represented.

Q: Do you take credit for the arrival of Phil’s in your district?

Q: Are those relationships with the Republicans ever going to be the same or what can we expect about that?

A: Um, ask me that one more time.

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Q: You’ve gotten a lot done by working with Republicans previously, but will it be the same?

A: I mean, to that, I think I have, um, I’ve just shown that I’m, you know, reasonable and problem solving and not being somebody who just stands up and makes fiery speeches and, you know, tweets out crazy things. I’ve been somebody who has really focused in on some tough issues. You know, homelessness is a tough issue, especially when I started and, you know, like in 2012 really wasn’t a lot of people talking about it. Um, in fact a cool thing happened to me in 2012. Tom Ammiano, the most, you know, a liberal icon from San Francisco stood up and said, now that I’m leaving the legislature, I’m glad that we have Brian Maienschein here to lead on homeless issues. It’s a pretty cool thing that somebody like that would say that to a freshman at the time Republican. So I think I’ve worked hard on issues that maybe don’t garner a lot of attention and are hard to explain in a soundbite. You know, it’s hard to explain a JPA to people, you know, but do I think that will make Project 25 scalable? I do, I do. So I don’t focus on issues that maybe garner a lot of headlines. I don’t do a lot of press conferences. But I think if you look at my body of work over 100 bills passed in areas, I think, that matter to people.

Q: Three of your fellow Democrats in the Assembly have gotten passed or tried to get passed bills that micromanage San Diego County, SANDAG, things like that. Do you think it’s appropriate for the state delegation to jump in and pass bills that tie the hands of local government in San Diego County?

A: I’m starting to think you’re not going to vote for me for an endorsement.

Q: I’m not in your district anymore. Sorry.

A: Did you live in my district?

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Q: I lived in the PQ for a long time.

A: Did you, really? I didn’t know that... Um, I’m sorry, say that again... Oh, micromanaging. I mean, do I sort of, I think you’re a little bit editorializing with your question, but do I think Sacramento should micromanage San Diego? No, but do I think that there are times where, um, agencies in San Diego have not acted in the best interest of the people that they’re purporting to represent? Then who does it devolve onto. Then, yeah, I do think there’s times where it devolves onto the state to do something when we’ve had agencies in California that have not always, um, you know, honored their responsibilities to San Diego.

Short-term rentals
(Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune)

Q: What was your stand on the bill that would have taken away coastal cities’ ability to regulate single family vacation rentals?

A: Yeah. I, again, I’ve said that I do believe there still needs to be local control over issues. I don’t think that mandating everything from Sacramento or from Washington, D.C., is a good idea.

Q: So you voted no on that?

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A: I don’t think it reached a vote. Did it?

Q: It never reached a vote.

A: How about [Assemblywoman] Lorena [Gonzalez]’s bill on SANDAG? Did you support that? To change the makeup and a weighted vote and ...?

Q: Yeah, I think I did support it.

A: But you don’t remember?

A: I actually don’t remember. I don’t remember, Matt.

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Q: Lorena’s not going to be happy to hear that.

A: I’m sorry. I know I should know how I voted on all her bills, but I don’t. Uh, I’ll apologize to her.

Q: My last question for you is you were elected in 2012, so you’re part of this class that will be termed out, assuming you win this election. Uh, what’s that like kind of staring down a term limit?

A: Yeah, you know, I still have more that I want to get done, um, and I want to finish out strong and continue to do good work. So I’ll worry about that down the road. It’s not something that I really spend time thinking about now. I’ve got two teenage daughters and I’m just trying to get through a day.

Q: Any other questions?

Q: The No. 1 complaint we get from letter writers, back to the homeless issue, is that there is, you already know that we’re going to solve this one step at a time, is that there is a never ending supply and California has become ground zero because it is the most logical place to go from numerous reasons. Um, so are, are they wrong about this? Are they wrong that we are just inviting more and more trouble. The harder we try to fix this problem, that more of it just surfaces.

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A: I don’t think you can say, I’m not going to try to fix a problem because it may result in something that’s sort of hypothetical down the road. For the most part, if you look at where homeless people tend to reside, they actually tend to reside in the place that they come from. For the most part, yes. Are Florida and California going to have an increase in it because is it, you know, if you had to choose where to sleep on a park bench at night would be nicer to sleep in a warm weather place or Denver or Kansas City or something? You know, obviously I think that part is true, but I don’t think it’s a good enough answer to say, look, I’m not going to try and solve the problem because anecdotally there may be something else that happens. I think if we can address what is... I didn’t look at it like... I took the hardest 38. I looked at it as this can be a test case to show what can be done and that was why, even with the data, I wanted Point Loma Nazarene business school, to take care of the data because I thought it was going to work. But having said that, if it didn’t, I really was OK with that because I said to myself, look, it’ll show this one doesn’t work. It’s sort of like science, right? Like you’ve got to keep, you’re trying to find a cure for something, you’ve got to keep finding the ones that don’t work before you find one that does. Now it showed it did work, which was nice, but it showed it from a data driven standpoint. So I think if the San Diego region for example, could show success ... a place like Utah would emulate it. If you look at what happens, whether it’s business, whether it’s sports, you know, anytime somebody wins a Super Bowl or World Series, next year everybody tries to emulate that team, right? Because, Oh, they showed they were successful, they won, you know, or they can become successful in business, whatever it is. I think showing some level of success on anything having to do with homelessness would be a boon to regions everywhere. And if you were solving it in San Diego, you could solve it in L.A. You could solve it in Utah, you could solve it in Denver, you could solve it in other places too. But I think to sit down and say homelessness is going to end in three years or five years is both naive and dishonest. What I think you can say is what can we do to start doing something to end homelessness for some percentage of the population? And I am proud that we did that, and everybody who looked at Project 25 ... if somebody from Bakersfield or wherever in California wanted to talk to me about how to do it, I would love to talk to them about how to do it and replicate it. It’s something that’s been proven to be successful. You can’t argue with it because the data is the data, and it’s not prepared by the Republican party or the Democratic party. It’s created by then somebody who worked for a nonprofit and a business school.

Q: A question about how worried and nervous you are about this race? In the last race what was so interesting as a political junkie, you won by 607 votes, you were sworn in before you knew for a fact that you had won, which might suggest a close race this time around. You’ve got 10 to one funds on your opponent. Um, tell us what you think about this race? What’s going to happen?

A: Yeah. You know, I’m going to work hard like I always have, I’m just going to continue trying to do a good job. And I think that I’ve shown people in my district over the course of my career that I’m somebody who is a problem solver and I’m somebody who is trying to do things that will help their lives and I’m going to do that, and I hope at the end of the election, you know, that’s reflected in the election results.

Q: So give us your closing statement then with an eye towards the Republicans in the district who are looking at you as someone they thought they knew or still know, but maybe have reservations about.

A: You know, you quoted the one Republican who probably has strong feelings on it. I think for the average person there, I don’t think it came as much of a surprise. I have a district that’s pretty independent. It’s not, you know, it has elected both Republicans and Democrats. Um, so, from sort of an average person at Starbucks, have I seen it as a problem? No. From the institutional people who feel they have to bang the drum or who continue to bang the drum in a way that really no one’s listening to. Okay. But I think for average people, I really do think including sort of the average Republican, I think they see this for what it is, from Tony Krvaric and those people, that crowd.

Q: Thanks for coming in.

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A: Always. Good seeing you guys. Take care.